


Cracking the Mirror

by ponchard



Series: Literal Elf Nerds [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Alternate Universe - Does Anyone Write Fanfics Containing Programmers?, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Programmers, Alternate Universe - Really Weird Setting, Alternate Universe - Software Developers, Alternate Universe - Software Engineers, Alternate Universe - Well It's A Thing Now, Ancient Elves (Dragon Age), Arlathan, Beer Snob, Champagne, Crack, Craft Beer, Eluvians, Elvhen Pantheon, Elvhenan, Excessive Drinking, Fade Nerds, Gen, Hacking, Literal Fade Nerds, Programmers, Software Developers, Software Engineers, Solas' Party Hat, The Fade, Weird Programmer Parties, photo booth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 10:20:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7570438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponchard/pseuds/ponchard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A modern AU that's literally about elf nerds. Corporate, skinny-jean-wearing code monkey elf nerds.</p><p>Well, it's half an AU. The ancient elves live in a modern AU. The present is canon compliant(ish). How is that possible? Come. Come, join me in this realm of madness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cracking the Mirror

The servant with the champagne was _chatty_. Also observant. This made his chattiness more interesting, all things considered. Not much more interesting, mind. But he had his moments. After what was, quite possibly, hours, he returned to the kitchen, leaving Solas one drink and one halla statuette richer.

It wouldn't do to take a drink from the statuette. Or, indeed, to be seen with it at all. Solas tucked it into an inner pocket and took a swig of champagne. Peeling off the wall, he went for a stroll. His was a drunken stroll, one that might charitably be called "aimless". So it was by pure coincidence, of course, that he found himself in front of a statuette-locked door.

Also by pure coincidence, he did not run into the Inquisitor. The chatty elf had painted a picture of leaves and splinters and quite-undignified lattice climbing, which, by sheer random chance, would be keeping the Herald busy at this moment in time.

Solas preferred to avoid climbing, having only one free hand.

Sagging against the doorframe, he slid the halla into place. Well, bumped it, really. After all, he certainly could not have intended to sneak into locked rooms! How impolite that would be. Since he was facing away from the door, it opened rather quicker than he expected. He later told himself that the half-hop was part of his tipsy act, to throw off suspicion. Nothing could be blamed on actual tipsiness, for he had been counting the glasses _very_ carefully and besides, the brewing nowadays couldn't possibly produce real alcohol. 

Waving the door closed, he waited for his eyes to adjust to the unlit room. Crates, clutter, mirror- ah. Conscious of time, he briskly stumbled to the eluvian. Hand curled around the frame, he felt up and down along the edge. His fingers crawled around on the back side of the mirror, searching for something forgotten for millennia. 

This was something he _had_ seen in the Fade, as it happened. Chiefly in very boring dreams. He had boring dreams more often than he was comfortable admitting, even to those who shared his definition of "boring".

While his left hand probed the side of the mirror, his right plonked the champagne onto a nearby crate. Ducking his head, he doffed his party hat, upside-down, and carefully set it on the floor, rotating it so the inside of the hat faced the wall. Worse came to worst, he could leave it. To modern eyes, the contents would look like any other magical knicknacks. 

He took another sip of champagne. Given the sad state of Thedosian brewing, this was purely a memory aid. A memory of a state of mind, a free association of thoughts which would help him with the task ahead. In fact, the memory was so strong that the champagne nearly toppled as he set it down. He took a moment to congratulate himself on how drunk he looked.

Solas' left hand stopped, finger poking into a hole in the mirror's trim. He rummaged through his hat and began unrolling a cable.

\---

In theory, Solas despised tech culture. He despised the insularity, he despised the egos, he despised the certainty that all progress was good. Most of all, he despised the excess. He despised the idea of people so invincible that they would bring live musicians, a half-naked performer in a unicorn suit, and most of the company to Elgar'nan's birthday party. In theory, he found nothing more vulgar than the idea of pissing away so much newfound wealth, all while straight-facedly claiming to be the most rational people on the planet. 

In theory.

In practice, he was thoroughly entertained by the unicorn. The tiny hamburgers were delicious as well. Not as good as the caterers at last month's party. But good enough. He stomped his feet in time to the music, pumping his fist to the booming bass line.

This theory/practice stuff was _complicated_. Especially when plastered. Solas preferred not to think about it. Thinking was for specific days. Other days. Days he'd set aside to wrap himself in pelts and despair about his place in the world.

In the corner of his eye, he saw Sylaise and June working their way toward him. He considered looking more composed, but that notion was swiftly discarded when the music kicked into high gear. Both of them were shuffling and swaying too. They were in no position to judge his jamming.

"We found you!" Sylaise yelled.

"C'mon, group portrait!" June tugged at Solas' arm. "Before the rest of 'em wander off."

Having tried all the food in this area, Solas let himself be led back to the mosaic booth. His teammates clustered in front of the black cloth, covering the full spectrum from hammered to nearly cuddling. Several had already grabbed props from the pile. Andruil had called dibs on the foam bow, of course. Falon'Din peered up at a gigantic shepherd's crook, its hook floppy from overuse. His coworkers were wonderful, brilliant souls. That was complicated too.

Solas swiped the wolf hat, stuffing his empty hand into one of the paws. The woman at the prop table corralled the rowdy engineers, snapping some group and individual shots. The mosaics were too heavy to carry by hand, so they each got a numbered tile, for later delivery. 

Once out of sight of the booth, they all passed their tiles to Mythal.

She snorted. "I don't have room for these."

"Sure you do," said Dirthamen. "You said yesterday you needed decorations for your new place."

"Booth pictures? Of you?"

"Order them with the gold filter?"

Mythal sighed, and stuck the tiles in her jeans. As the group made their way back to the bar, Sylaise cut away. "Got my stuff almost checked in."

Andruil perked up. "You figured out the memory issue?"

The Hearthkeeper grinned. "Yep. We were just doing the unwrapping in the wrong order."

"Wait, seriously?" Solas said. By this point, Sylaise had not so much cut away, as led the entire team back to her desk.

"Yeah, there was this part in the docs," she turned on her screen, tilting it so everyone could see, "It's not in the database docs, that would make too much sense." She swept her finger down the smooth glass surface, pointing out the footnote she'd found. "Right here." At that, the others made sounds somewhere between groans and gasps. She started up the unit tests, and text began scrolling up her monitor. 

Naturally, the team spent the rest of the party watching tests run and discussing code. It was quieter here, anyway. The craft beer was finally kicking in, and Solas found himself lazily leaning against a divider, letting the stories wash over him. He almost didn't feel his phone vibrate. A few moments in, his mind started to register what was happening. He snatched his phone out of his pocket and brought it to his ear.

"Is this still a good time?" The voice was unmistakable.

"Yes. Just a moment." He gave his friends a look that said _this is definitely a delivery or a healer or a cleaner, and could not possibly be a recruiter. And... even if it were a recruiter, it would not be one from our biggest rival. Absolutely not._ They stopped talking as he left, in a way that said _we're too drunk to care, but good luck!_ Solas found himself a private room and shut the door, silently cursing himself for losing track of the time and his inebriation.

"Go ahead."

Things were complicated. Things were very, very complicated.

\---

Solas' phone had no signal, these days. But he still had some of his offline tools. He fed the cable from the back of the eluvian to his device, and started up some scripts on the smaller screen. Hacking at a distance was difficult. Hacking something in the same room was, and always would be, painfully easy. His phone pretended to be a peripheral, and the mirror was happy to believe it. Within a few moments, it flickered on, bypassing access control.

He started up a few services, looking for any signs of connection with other devices. Text flew across the screen, looping through different addresses. Seconds later, he saw what he needed. 

He almost laughed. After the fall, there was little reason to be paranoid about network security. Who would attack your machine? And over what network? Even so, he'd never seen a connection so _open_ before. His script pinged it, and it dutifully responded back, with plenty of diagnostic information on top. Sometime, he'd have to have a word with Imshael about basic information security. Unless it was intentional. In that case, he'd have to have a word with Imshael about playing fair with mortals.

A few commands later, and he had a terminal open on the distant eluvian. If he could get admin access, he could make it lock out the current owner, let in his own agents, or beep annoyingly when used. Reaching for his phone, he launched his password cracker. He wasn't worried about retry limits. If the script tried too many passwords, there were plenty of unlocked eluvians he could use to disguise his connection. And that was assuming this machine had retry limits, which seemed unlikely.

As it turned out, even that was assuming too much. The cracker uncovered a full list of password hashes, readable by all users. Yes, he would definitely need to have a chat with Imshael. Whatever the reason, that was sloppy.

Disconnected from the Fade, he couldn't download rainbow tables. But his phone was able to check its guesses against the hashes, without using up password attempts. After a few thousand guesses, it had an answer, and Solas was in. With admin control, he quickly changed some settings, preventing Briala from locking him out in the future. He also added a logging script, which would record when any of her agents used the mirrors. Finally, he wiped the logs of his intrusion, both on Briala's mirror and on the one he was using to reach it. Probably overkill, if Imshael continued to play tech support. But it was good hygiene.

When he was satisfied, he unplugged his phone, rolled up the cable, and grabbed his champagne and hat. Dropping back into character, he swayed for the door. As he stowed his phone into his hat, one-handed, he glanced at the password cracker's output. That brought a real chuckle.

"Perhaps I should have just asked!"

**Author's Note:**

> The technical descriptions are as real as I could make them without veering into Jargon City. Coding while sloshed is also a real thing, it's called the [Ballmer Peak](https://xkcd.com/323/). It's kind of a joke, but it kind of works?
> 
> The commentary about tech culture (specifically, Silicon Valley tech culture) is a bit exaggerated. Solas needed to get some self-loathing in.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed my nonsense. <3


End file.
